St. Johnís Norway - one of the east endís gems

Q7. Sand removed from St.John's cemetery was used for what purpose?

The church of St. John the Baptist, Norway, is one of the east endís most notable and enduring landmarks.
Set on a hill at the northwest corner of Kingston Road and Woodbine, St. Johnís has served the surrounding community
since its early days as a tiny settlement known as Norway.

In its heyday in the mid 1800s, Norway had a post office, school, store, steam sawmill, several hotels and taverns,
and a population of about 100 people (see article on page 6). The Anglican congregation met at OíSullivanís, a local
tavern. Then, in 1853, a wealthy landowner by the name of Charles Coxwell Small donated three acres of land for
a church and graveyard.

Small owned a 472-acre estate which went all the way from what is now Coxwell
Avenue to Woodbine Avenue and from the Danforth south to the lakeshore.
He called his estate Berkeley, which was also the name of his mansion in
the heart of Toronto, at the corner of what is now Berkeley Street and King.
Small also had a summer home just off Kingston Road west of Woodbine.

The church erected on this parcel of land was an unpretentious log structure which had been a schoolhouse.
It was purchased for £400 and dragged by oxen a mile along Kingston Road to the site, just west of where the
church stands now. In accordance with Smallís wishes, the church went by the name St. Johnís, Berkeley. Sometime
after Smallís death the church started to call itself St. John the Baptist, Norway, or, simply, St. Johnís, Norway.

The little church on the hill was fondly described by one old-timer as being exceedingly quaint and possessing a very sweet bell which
was rung every evening at six oíclock.

This bell, first rung in the Church of St. Johnís, Norway at its dedication in 1855 was placed in the cemetery office in
1929, and has rung during every funeral service since then.

Sand
Used To Make Bricks
The contours of the area were very different in those days. Norway was located
at the edge of the formation which includes the Scarborough Bluffs deep
long drifts of sand from the shores of prehistoric Lake Iroquois. When parts
of the cemetery property were graded, thousands of loads of building sand
were removed and sold to the Toronto Brick Works. The sand was made into
clay bricks used to build homes and factories throughout the city in the
mid 1800s. It also helped pay for 15 acres of much-needed cemetery land.

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